This Delhi-based studio specialises in not-your-grandma’s terrazzo

There was a time when it seemed like terrazzo was on the floor of every Indian home. Its popularity made sense: it was cheap to produce, it let you recycle stone chips that were going to waste anyway, it magically made dust disappear, and it looked great. But with ubiquity comes boredom, and the minute Indian homeowners had access to something different, they jumped ship.

A penchant for westernised minimalism made marble the flooring of choice for a while, and when tastes shifted back to the vernacular, we were all raving about the cooling texture of Kota and Kadappa stone. Terrazzo wasn’t high-end enough to be part of the conversation. But now, sentiments have started to shift again. Architects want their work to be more eco-friendly; designers want to source locally, and homeowners want to see colour again. Terrazzo is poised to make a comeback. 

With any good revival comes some great innovation. And one brand that’s been quick on the draw is New Delhi-based Parman Designs, whose work is rapidly reimagining the speckled medium. The studio launched five years ago (back when most people still associated terrazzo with their grandmothers’ living rooms and concrete-cast furniture was limited to RCC garden benches) and took the pattern off floors and onto walls, seating (for MuseLab), and even bathtubs (which they retail through their sister concern, Redden Bathware).

Studio founders Param Deswal and Manuj Shukla come from very different schools of design—Shukla studied fashion at NIFT and Deswal, footwear design at FDDI—which they’re able to channel into unusual forms and cheeky interplays of colour. (Interestingly, like terrazzo itself, the name Parman is a composite of the founders’ first names). While Deswal attributes terrazzo’s revival to the growing interest in using environmentally friendly materials, Shukla adds that customers today “are more aware of design, and they look for unique, out-of-the-box forms that will differentiate their space from others”. And in the duo’s hands, you can see terrazzo’s expansion spilling everywhere.

At Delhi’s now-shuttered diner Rosie & Tillie, Parman Designs used white terrazzo for the floors, tabletops, and booths. In Mumbai, for Starbucks Reserve’s centrepiece, a barista counter, they custom-created a nougat-like Venetian terrazzo that blends Indian and Italian stone. But the project where terrazzo’s renaissance is most evident is at Chandigarh’s Tin Tin, a restaurant designed by Renesa Architects, where Deswal and Shukla created a meandering mosaic of dramatic flooring, contoured ceiling, and sweeping arches in between.

It’s design success like this that has fuelled their confidence to experiment. The duo has created terrazzo with chips of glass; blended metal, mirror, and quartz to make their Ocean Table; and created “contiguous terrazzo” that has the visual effect of a piece of patchwork fabric. These days, they’re experimenting with melted aluminium and brass. “Earlier it was more trial and error,” Deswal admits, “but with the experience of creating these pieces, we have overcome that.”

The studio has now set its sights on new territories: with offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, and Jalandhar, and another one that will soon open in Hyderabad. Currently, they are hard at work on a new collection for the AD Design Show this September. “It’s too early to talk about it yet,” Deswal laughs, “but these are going to be very unique pieces that nobody has ever seen.” It’s a bold claim, but given their track record, one that’s not hard to believe.